2 out of 4 stars
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Stories from Bermuda is a collection of four short stories written by Joya E. Georgiafay and Nelson Kezas. Joya was born in Bermuda, thereby adding an air of authenticity to the tales.
As a fan of Aesop's Fables and other morality tales, I was looking forward to reading this book. Substantially longer than fables, the stories were still nice, and I could easily discern the lessons they were seeking to teach.
Tawny and the Forbidden Swimming Hole starred Tawny and her twin sister, Pearl. The 8-year-old girls sneak off to swim in the swimming hole that their mother had forbidden them to visit and learn a valuable lesson in obedience. The twins are also featured in the story, Tawny and Lobsters Under the Bed. In this tale, the twins' father brings home a bag of live lobsters. Since their home is small, there's no storage room, so their father decides to put the bag under the girls' bed for the night. This does not sit well with Tawny because she is afraid of “those nasty things.” Tommy the Snail tells the tale of a snail who is trying to make his way from Mr. and Mrs. Rats' porch to the bush just off the edge of the porch, an endeavor that would take hours since snails “move very, very slowly”. The problem is that he's trying to make it before the Rats can find him and try to eat him. Lastly, Doug the Slug, Lee the Centipede and the Game of Cricket is the story of Doug, the slug of the title, who is trying to avoid being eaten by Lee, the centipede.
I found all four of the stories to be interesting, and I imagine that children would especially like the last story since it was the funniest. The lessons of obedience, perseverance, having confidence in oneself, and overcoming fears were subtle, and it didn't feel like the author was trying to hit me over the head with the morals. Even though I didn't spend a long time with any of the characters due to the nature of the tales, I still liked them well enough. Tawny and Pearl, in particular, were believable as young girls, and I could understand how frustrated their mother got with them. I also found myself cheering for Tommy and Doug in their stories.
Stories from Bermuda had a fair amount of pictures but perhaps a little less than most stories aimed at young children. What I did not like, though, was the usage of both cartoonish pictures and more realistic pictures (which may have actually been photographs). I think the tome would have been better off with one kind of graphic throughout, and the cartoonish pictures were drawn well. Still, I am open to the idea that children from Bermuda are used to such a mix of pictures.
One thing that really disappointed me about this book was the lack of editing. While I realize that at least one of the authors was originally from Bermuda, there's no excuse for not making sure the tome was error-free, which is especially important for a children's book. The missteps I noticed included errors in punctuation, misspellings, and clumsy sentence structure. “Visiting her good friend, Ina Simmons on the Saturday morning before the wedding, the girl’s mother whose name was Fay was talking about the girl’s singing in Church on the morrow” is just one example of the many sentences containing an abundance of errors. Additionally, Tommy the Snail contained the word “see” way too much. “So, the snail…his name was Tommy, though he could slide across the porch to the bush see. Tommy the snail wanted to get to the bush directly in front of the porch where he has been living since he left home see. The porch was shaped in a square and had two porch chairs on it and one wooden table with plants on it see” is an example passage. By the time I'd hit the second page of the story, I was hearing it being read in the voice of a cartoon mobster weasel. I strongly urge the authors to have this book properly edited since it's vitally important that children read error-free books as examples of the correct way to write.
Due to the abundance of errors and the jarring mix of picture styles, I am forced to give Stories from Bermuda 2 out of 4 stars. While I loved the content of the stories, their value is lessened greatly by the missteps I noted. I would not recommend this book for children until it's revised, but adults may still enjoy the tales, provided they can overlook the negatives I listed.
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Stories from Bermuda
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